


wash away my colours

by inquisitor_tohru



Category: Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano Friendship, Body Horror, Canon Disabled Character, Existential Angst, Gen, Sad Darth Vader, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:28:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27541594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inquisitor_tohru/pseuds/inquisitor_tohru
Summary: When Ahsoka jumpedforward,Vader tumbledback.
Relationships: Ahsoka Tano & Darth Vader, Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano
Comments: 8
Kudos: 124
Collections: Time Oops Exchange 2020





	wash away my colours

**Author's Note:**

  * For [youngjusticewriter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/youngjusticewriter/gifts).



When Ahsoka jumped _forward,_ Vader tumbled _back._

And when he opened his eyes, the light prickled, but it no longer burned. He hadn't had to breathe for so long - had been more than half machine - that he'd almost forgotten how. With each breath, he felt as if he were suffocating, the dark noose of the Force blackening his lungs, tightening around his throat. But he _felt._ His lips were dry and chapped, but not chewed up by flame, because they were Anakin Skywalker's lips.

Vader did not - _should not_ \- exist yet. There was only Anakin Skywalker.

He patted the lightsaber at his hip, with a hand he ought not to have. His right hand felt more like his own, and for that at least he felt something akin to gratitude. He need not feel entirely disconnected from his body, from _Anakin,_ so long as there were pieces that remained familiar. He'd grown so accustomed to his entombment in Vader's armor that bodily sensations were...overwhelming, and they weren't the only thing.

_I won't leave you._

The words echoed through the Force, as the threads of Anakin's past, present, and future tied themselves into knots. Vader remembered this day well, could not have forgotten it, even if he'd wanted to. Today was the day Ahsoka Tano would abandon the Jedi Order, the day she would abandon her master, Anakin Skywalker.

_Not this time._

Perhaps things could be different. Ahsoka didn't _have_ to leave him. _Padmé_ was alive. Somehow, without the suit that had become his shroud, he saw the threads come together as glistening webs of possibilities where he'd been so sure there were none.

It wasn't about redemption. Padmé was still alive, Mace was still alive, the _younglings_ were still alive, and even if that didn't change this time, neither did the fact that he'd murdered them. It wasn't as simple as undoing it. He'd live with it for the rest of his life, as surely as he'd live with the phantom flames of Mustafar lapping at his pasty, washed out flesh.

It was about doing the right thing. If that meant shouldering the burden, the pain _,_ of being Anakin Skywalker, _forever,_ then so be it. As he listened to the Jedi Council spout their nonsense about this being Ahsoka's great trial, he already knew what he'd tell her when she walked out on the Order.

"I understand. More than you realize, I understand wanting to walk away from the Order." The words, familiar as they were, felt alien on his tongue, and a part of him missed the steady, even tone from his vocabulator. It was as if two people were trying to speak at once, with only one voice between them, and the resulting static in the Force was giving him a headache.

"I know." This time when she turned to leave, he caught her gently by the forearm, with his flesh-and-blood hand. Her striped lekku swayed as she looked back with eyes wide with hope, and Anakin swallowed, taking his saber from his hip, letting it fall to the ground.

"I won't leave you."

_Not this time._


End file.
